Jad Dean

Given the torment and abuse he suffered for years after his missed field goal late against South Carolina in 2006, it's a surprise to hear that Jad Dean is currently as big a message-board junkie as anyone. Dean is an avid subscriber to Tigerillustrated.com, refreshes the site non-stop through the day, and he even visits Saturday in-game message-board threads that can turn nasty in a hurry. It took Dean years to fully get past the missed kick that allowed the team he grew up hating to walk out of Death Valley with a narrow win 17 years ago. For a while he tortured himself over that kick, telling himself he probably should've instead gone to play at Georgia where the weight of his lifetime of loving Clemson wouldn't have affected him in a game and pushed him away from the school and fans he loved. He can laugh about a lot of it now -- the double birds from the elderly woman as he departed the stadium that day, teammate Phillip Merling trying to go into the stands and confront the woman in defense of his teammate, and the wild behavior of fanatics whose emotional stability is tied to the actions of college kids on a football field. In fact, Dean considers himself one of those fanatics these days as he yells at the television screen when things aren't going great with his Tigers. Dean joins The Clemson Dubcast to reflect on his long journey since his college career ended, and the healthy perspective he has on it all now.